butternut harvest soup

ummm, hi. hello. sorry i'm late. do you know i've posted 11 times in 2010? yup, blogger FAIL. my bad.

it's not that i haven't cooked... well, i didn't more or less all summer because my darling husband can (and WILL) grill an. y. thing. (nom.) when we moved, we got a new grill to go with our new patio-- a full-height camping grill. beats the one that sits six inches off the ground. and it gets a full-sized propane tank. HOORAY. he also got a cuisinart griddler for our anniversary. so much grilling.

um, yeah, anyway.

lately i don't want to blog without pictures, i guess, so i just don't blog. but while my parents were in paris, france, europe the past couple weeks, we got their csa and i've been cooking some interesting stuff. like butternut harvest soup.

ingredients:

• 1 butternut squash, peeled, gutted and cubed
• 1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored and cubed
• 2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped
  
• 2 leeks (white and light parts only) cleaned and chopped
• 2 tbs butter
• 6ish cups chicken broth
• salt, pepper, nutmeg
  
• greek yogurt

prep:

• peel, gut, core, chop, cube

actual cooking:

• saute leeks and carrots in butter until tender
• add broth and bring to a boil
• add apple & squash and simmer until squash is easily pierced with a fork
• remove from heat and blend in a food processor or with an immersion blender
  
• season with salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg if you like
• stir a heaping tablespoon of greek yogurt into each bowl
  

so, this was the first of 4 soups i made over the course of two weeks. i also have a massive fail (with pictures) to blog and a pretty awesome seat-of-my-pants dinner. i will try very hard to blog them.

zuchotto

(daddy, mama, michael, nardo, kevvie, j, bill, sue, mary, frankie-baby, james, moi, joseph, jim & joe. mara & col were gone by then and old greg graciously took this one for us. and i have no idea where steven was. i kept asking and never got an answer.)

this past weekend, we had my favorite annual tradition: gaining four pounds in two days while the ice in our drinks melts way too fast in the sweltering northern virginia august. also known as the hughes cousins convention at uncles jim & frank's.

after a solid year of emails and obsessive, mouth-watering discussion, jim & i finally got to make our zuchotto. bill recorded it for posterity. because by the time it was unveiled, jim & i were SEVERAL margamaritas in. what? they're GOOD.

zuchotto is a dome-shaped confection compromised of layers of pound cake "bricks," whipped cream with roasted hazelnuts and whipped cream with chocolate chips, all generously doused with booze and set in the fridge for several hours.



so, basically, you line a bowl in cheesecloth, spray booze, then line it in bricks. which you spray with booze.


does my family turn it ON when there's a camera, or what? this was about 10am. if mama didn't do it, kevvie would have had to, but he was busy JUMPING OUT OF A PERFECTLY GOOD AIRPLANE at the time.



then a floor of whipped cream with whichever mix-in. you want to alternate. then bricks. then booze. repeat as necessary.



we used about five 8" pound cakes, 2 quarts of heavy cream and... um... some nuts & chips. and booze.


young james was SUPER helpful with disposing of leftover bricks. spread with nutella, natch.



did i say REAL whipped cream? cause: REAL. and unsweetened. trust me.







after a good spraying, wrap her in cheesecloth, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 7-24 hours.







perfect!


and HUGE. cutting through it wasn't doing my tendinitis any favors, let me tell you. so uncle jim took over and people started sharing cause-- whoa-- my uncle cuts a serious piece of cake.





(i mean, he DID jump out of a perfectly good airplane that morning!)

irish milk stout bread (or: beer for breakfast)

oh, hai! how do you like the detail on that picture? can you practically taste the beery goodness? or perhaps your screen isn't hd. mine is. because i have a new! fast! laptop! and a new! shiny! camera! and a new! fancy! mobile! hotspot! thus, i am blogging in bed and drooling over the pics of this irish porter bread which i actually made with a milk stout. mmmmmm. in order to keep myself in fancy technology upgrades, and creatively fulfilled, i'm back in the kitchen making sure daddy & bill still love me enough to give me fancy, spill-proof keyboards and a better camera than the one i gave a shower to. okay, TWO showers.

ingredients:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon EACH ground cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. and allspice if you have that. i don't.
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 a bottle of porter or stout
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 beaten eggs

prep:

• warm up your beer
• grease 2 8-inch round cake pans
• preheat to 350*

actual cooking:

• combine flour, salt & spices
• work in butter with a pastry cutter or your hands
• add sugar
• make a well in the mixture
• combine beer & baking soda
• pour the liquid & eggs into the well and still until just combined
• divide between pans
• bake for 20 minutes and then reduce heat to 300*
• bake for another 40ish minutes until bread pulls away from the sides of the pan
• enjoy warm or room temperature with the rest of the beer

canadian bacon & carmelized onion fritatta

(how fantastic is the evening light in my kitchen? love.)

mimi bought me a cast-iron skillet so i don't have to flip my fritattas anymore-- now i can just shove them under the broiler for a couple minutes to finish cooking the top. there's so much you can do with a cast-iron skillet, it's amazing. cornbread is traditionally made in one and it's great for a cobbler or one-pot meal, too. it's a huge pain in the ass to clean, though. scour with coarse salt? no soap? ugh. fortunately, we're accustomed to washing dishes without soap since something, something, blah, blah, blah no soap in the beer glasses!

okaaaay. recipe.

ingredients:

• several slices of canadian bacon (or ham, whatever you keep around)
• 6-8 small red potatoes
• 1/2 an onion
• 4-5 eggs
• canola oil
• sea salt & ground pepper

prep:

• slice canadian bacon & onion into matchsticks
• slice potatoes
• beat eggs

actual cooking:

• put a generous splash of oil in the skillet
• add potatoes
• cover and allow to cook until slightly browned
• add onions
• allow to brown slightly
• add candian bacon
• salt & pepper to taste

• add eggs

• reduce heat, cover
• cook until set
• put under the broiler for 5 minutes (or so) to finish the top

serves two or three, can be doubled or more, but you might have to cook the potatoes in batches.

fritatta is the dish that turned bill to eggs. it was his idea to add the onions, here, and he was totally right. fritatta is making, um, a comback, i guess because it's so "recession-friendly." it's been in all the magazines lately being all hip and new. which it's totally not. but it's still good.